Spartans Never Die
by Don Piano
Summary: Tom reflects on being a Spartan III and what can never be forgotten. Characters from The Ghosts Of Onyx


Just a little thing that went through my head while reading Ghosts Of Onyx. Enjoy.

* * *

From the secret diary of- SPARTAN III BETA COMPANY FIRETEAM FOXTROT B292- Tom

DATA CORRUPT CONTRABAND CLASSIFIED INFORMATION WRONGFULLY ENCLOSED

How do you kill a Spartan? Do you shoot them? Do you bomb them? Do you annihilate an entire planet?

This morning it happened again. It was approximately 0400 hours and I was in my bunk at Camp Curahee. The camp itself is setup in a horseshoe like shape, with the barracks  
at the end of the left curve.Typical UNSC Barracks are merely long rooms with bunks and footlockers, with an aft compartment of showering facilities. This particular one however had an additional feature. Spatans are family, therefore they do everything together. However some things still set them apart. The two of us were the lone survivors of Beta company. Years ago, we had watched our family get ripped down in front of us. Because of our alienation, Lucy and I had our own corner of the barracks walled off. Even though the younger Spartans looked up to us and listened to us, we have always felt like we didn't belong. Lucy and I were the only two that understood what they will someday witness.

The last thing she said before going silent forever:  
"How do you know we're still alive?"

I woke up to the sound of someone trying to cry, but being unable to. I immediately jumped from my top bunk to check on Lucy who bunked below me. When we were younger, she was so brash and tough it almost scared me. She had made our team stronger by being that way. If it wasn't good enough for Lucy, it wasn't good enough for the rest of Fireteam Foxtrot. I formulated plans and executed them for the sake of not having to see anger on her face. Thankfully it was always good enough.

Since our company has been disbanded, Lucy had changed. She was no longer the harsh and hard person I had once known. Besides not saying anything to anyone, she showed little emotion. The perfect soldier right? But while she didn't show things like anger or happiness that didn't stop her from feeling them. I like to think that I can read her feelings better than anyone, and it might be true. But right now, her feelings were obvious as she sat up in her bunk, dry heaving. It was hard seeing her like I did now. It brought it all back.

"Lucy?" I asked quietly into the darkness. I saw an ivory hand shakily try to wave me away. "Lucy..." I repeated again. Two families killed by the same unmovable enemy, she was a double orphan.

But wasn't I exactly the same? What made me different?

I sat down on the end of her bunk while I thought, Lucy stayed how she was, her head in her hands in her knees.

After everything, I don't know what changed inside me. Not a lot from first impressions. I wrote secretly; Poetry and philosophy. I also sketched on the odd occasion. I was a Spartan with hobbies that didn't include war. Sometimes, when we both had free time, Lucy sketched with me. She drew oceans, and fields and one time she drew two hands holding. I've kept them all.

I went to put my arm around her, a gesture I'd never tried before to calm her down, but she shoved me away softly. I don't know when I got so sensitive, it just happened. All that training from when I was younger to keep things like this repressed, I guess I just grew out of it. I could still act tough for the trainees, but that wasn't what I was really like. Is this what you did Lucy? Was it all an act?

I had the sudden urge to write, so I grabbed my pad of paper and pen from under my mattress and began. Her question repeated through my mind, her voice long since faded from my memory, and now replaced by my own.

When I had finished, I sat for a few moments in silence as Lucy's heaves had turned into small struggled breaths. I tapped her on the shoulder and showed her what I had written. Thinking about it now, there was nothing I could have done that would have been harsher or more insensitive.

How do you kill a Spartan? Do you shoot them? Do you bomb them? Do you annihilate an entire planet?

It is none of these things. You can not kill a Spartan because a Spartan is already dead.

Destroy the memory however, and a Spartan will never be seen again.

We sat there for a long while and I avoided Lucy's eyes.

When I finally looked over at her, she was staring at me. Her eyes were dry and there was a fire in them that reminded me of an explosion I had witnessed long ago. All consuming, all encasing, with no chance of escape. I expected her to hit me or hurt me someway, but she didn't.

Lucy leaned over and latched onto me, and after a second of delay, tears finally came.

Lucy cried.


End file.
